NASA GSFC Solicitation: The Climate at Home Project

Synopsis – Mar 14, 2011

General Information

Solicitation Number: CLIMATE-HOME-RFI-2011
Posted Date: Mar 14, 2011
FedBizOpps Posted Date: Mar 14, 2011
Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No
Original Response Date: Mar 28, 2011
Current Response Date: Mar 28, 2011
Classification Code: A — Research and Development
NAICS Code: 541712 – Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 210.M, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Description

This notice is issued by NASA GSFC to solicit responses from industry regarding a climate simulation system referred to hereafter as the “Climate@Home project”. This Request for Information (RFI) is for Research and Development for Information Technology. The RFI is for informational and planning purposes only and to allow industry the opportunity to verify their capabilities and the feasibility of the requirements, as well as promote competition. A formal Request for Proposal (RFP) may follow at the conclusion of this RFI process. GSFC invites vendors to provide candid opinions on the proposed requirement.

NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE SIMULATIONSYSTEM (“CLIMATE@HOME(TM) PROJECT”)

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (“GSFC”) is looking to enter into a non-funded Space Act Agreement partnership for the development of a climate simulation system referred to hereafter as the “Climate@Home(TM) project.” The Climate@Home(TM) project will build a virtual climate simulation supercomputer with contributions from citizens for both their idle computing cycles and local knowledge about climate change. The Climate@Home(TM) effort will be a major step towards developing a new quantitative system for prioritizing and designing a climate simulation system. It will spur a closer relationship between the climate science hypothesis (a climate model) and the design of the simulation system used to test that hypothesis. Additionally, it will allow for prior assessment of measurements against specific accuracy, coverage and biases we will be able to constrain within model parameterizations. The Climate@Home(TM) project will also contribute to the national and international effort to better understand climate change, prepare citizens for climate change, and support regional to global climate related policy and decision making.

The Information Technology (IT) infrastructure supporting the Climate@Home(TM) project should be able to handle data intensive, computing intensive, spatiotemporal intensive and concurrent intensive problems posed by climate studies. Within climate sciences, hundreds of models, millions of configurations, and billions of model runs are required for scientists to better determine parameters and experiment thousands of algorithms and theories.

NASA/GSFC seeks a collaborator with cutting-edge solutions and advanced computing technologies, including, but not limited to, cloud computing, virtual storage, multidimensional visualization tools, grid computing and innovative business models to assist with the research of applications and facilitation of the current Climate@Home(TM) IT architecture. A partner could benefit from the use of Climate@Home(TM) by testing and maturing advanced computing technologies and co-developing new business products that have mutual benefits.

All interested parties are requested to submit a description of your capabilities via email to Kimber Russell (Kimber.R.Russell@nasa.gov) by close of business March 28, 2011. All questions must be submitted in writing.

THIS IS *NOT* A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL, QUOTATION, OR INVITATION FOR BID. This RFI is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government, nor will the Government pay for the information submitted in response to this RFI.

An ombudsman has been appointed — See NASA Specific Note “B”.

The solicitation and any documents related to this procurement will be available over the Internet. These documents will reside on a World Wide Web (WWW) server, which may be accessed using a WWW browser application. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/GSFC Business Opportunities home page is http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=51 It is the offeror’s responsibility to monitor the Internet cite for the release of the solicitation and amendments (if any). Potential offerors will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments, if any.

Any referenced notes may be viewed at the following URLs linked below.

Point of Contact

Name: Kimber R Russell
Title: Contract Specialist
Phone: 301-286-3723
Fax: 301-286-9159
Email: kimber.r.russell@nasa.gov